At the recent CrossFit Tour stop in Big Sky, Mont., Dr. Nicholas Romanov worked with Bret Ellis to improve his running form. In Part 3, the Pose Method creator teaches the owner and head trainer at CrossFit Rabid in Rainbow City, Ala., about cadence.

Unfortunately, Ellis is having a hard time, and his effort his visible.

“You’re still trying to look a certain position ’cause you haven’t quite felt it yet,” observes CrossFit Games General Manager Justin Bergh. “You feel it at a low speed.”

Romanov has Ellis do a one-legged-running drill. Afterward, Ellis is still kicking his feet behind him.

“Bret, you’re putting effort over there. There is no effort,” Romanov explains. “It’s not behind; it’s under the hip.”

He adds: “Pose should be untouchable, you know. You have to stay in pose, no matter what.”

At the recent CrossFit Tour stop in Big Sky, Mont., Dr. Nicholas Romanov worked with Bret Ellis to improve his running form. In Part 2, the creator of the Pose Method teaches Ellis, owner and head… Continue Reading

Dr. Nicholas Romanov, the creator of the Pose Method, delves deeper into the nature of perception.

According to Romanov, unlike our physical abilities, our perception is “limitless,” and it is the one thing we can… Continue Reading

perhaps it is the language barrier by I feel as though Romanov is bad at articulating what he wants to see. I think his techniques for teaching are amazing and I really like his framework for coaching. I don't know, I could just be crazy but I didn't feel like it was easy for this guy to understand what was expected of him

High technical running is a very difficult thing to do/learn and it is even more difficult to teach because of so much misconception as well as a general lack of perception and awareness. There is a language barrier, but that isn't the biggest factor in the struggle... it is the undoing of a shitty movement pattern. The perfect cues could have been given, but the results would have been roughly the same. In other words, cues are important but they mean nothing until the athlete can perceive the movements and be aware of relative efficiency/inefficiency.

Long story short, it is rarely easy to learn running technique regardless of a language barrier and it is a testament to Romanov's communication capability that such inefficient running could be improved in a short amount of time with a significant language barrier.

Having seen the language barrier in other sports I think it makes it easier to correct things, because there isn't a lot of extra fluff in the description. You demonstrate, give verbal/tactile cues and a very simple verbal description and get after it.

The CrossFit Journal is a chronicle of the empirically driven, clinically tested, and community developed CrossFit program. Our mission is to provide a venue for contributing coaches, trainers, athletes, and researchers to ponder, study, debate, and define fitness and collectively advance the art and science of optimizing human performance.